topic / computer-architecture

Computer Architecture

Follow instructions through pipelines, caches, and the memory hierarchy.

Understand CPUs, instruction sets, pipelines, branch prediction, cache lines, coherence, parallelism, and why the physical cost of data movement shapes performance.

1 article · 1 video · 1 trace · 1 request flow · 1 interview · 5 total

Articles

computer architectureSep 25, 2026

Data Movement Is the Hidden Cost in CPU Work

Follow an instruction through a pipelined processor and explain why cache locality often matters more than operation count.

7 min readRead

Request Flows

request flow · 5 stagesAn Instruction Load Meets the Memory HierarchyVisualize address translation, cache lookup, a lower-level fetch, and the dependent work that resumes when data arrives.

Videos

In production

computer architectureSep 25, 2026

What Happens After a Cache Miss

A planned animation follows one dependent load through address translation, cache lookup, line fill, and resumed execution.

Details

Traces

trace 01 · hardwareTrace a Cache Miss to MemoryFollow a processor load through cache tags, a lower-level lookup, a cache-line fill, and the instruction that was waiting.

Interviews

medium · t2Why Does a Cache Miss Stall Some Instructions?A hardware prompt about dependent loads, cache-line fills, out-of-order execution, locality, and measurable program behavior.

Explore adjacent

computer systems operating systems programming algorithms performance engineering instruction pipelines cache memory hierarchy branches and parallelism

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